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Hustling Is Not Stealing:  Stories of an African Bar Girl


Exchange Is Not Robbery:  More Stories of an African Bar Girl


Tables of Contents


Hustling Is Not Stealing:
Stories of an African Bar Girl


Introduction

  • Excerpt from “Junior Wife”
  • Preamble:  Stories and Their Critics
  • Africa:  The End of the Earth Where the World Began
  • The Politico-economic Techno-philosophical Socio-historical Global-developmental Backdrop
  • The View from Ground Level
  • Cities as the Heavens of this Earth    <PDF>
  • Commodity Traders
  • Digression on the End of the World
  • Ethnography to the Second Power
  • The Brer Rabbit School of Feminism

Part One:  Into The Life


Chapter 1:  Not Bad as Such

  • Like a Letter
  • The Village of Don't–Go–There
  • More Aunts
  • A Brief Adolescence
  • Junior Wife

Chapter 2:  The Life

  • Paradise Hotel
  • Cheap Money
  • The Price of Tea
  • Janet's Baby
  • The Problem of Being Small
  • Married without a Ring
  • Reflections:  After the First Year as Ashawo

Chapter 3:  Problems of Self–Empowerment

  • Repaying Rough with Rough
  • The Lebanese Twins
  • Deviant Sex
  • Really Deviant Sex
  • Wounds
  • What No Girl Says
  • Butterfly Wings
  • The Man with Four Noses
  • Case Histories

Part Two:  With the British in a Provincial Capital


Chapter 4:  The Chief of Bagabaga

  • Nigel's Courtship
  • The Two Wives of the Chief of Bagabaga
  • Jack Toronto
  • Roads Not Taken

Chapter 5:  Fucking English People

  • William and Abena    <PDF>
  • Reflections:  Property and Family
  • Power Show for Cigarettes
  • Cool-Catch-Monkey
  • Nigel's Mouth
  • A Beating among Friends

Part Three:  Into the Life Again


Chapter 6:  Avoiding the Life

  • A Ghanaian Boyfriend
  • Reflections:  An Independent Life

Chapter 7:  With Jacqueline

  • To Go to Togo
  • At Podo's House
  • The Turkey–Tail Man

Chapter 8:  A Bad Sickness    <PDF>

  • The Treatment
  • Love and the Banana

Part Four:  Juju


Chapter 9:  The Sheer Ubiquity of It

  • Issahaku's Medicine
  • Christmas for a Juju
  • The Keta Girls and the Seaman

Chapter 10:  Witches

  • Witchfire
  • Babies as Strangers
  • The Witchcraft of the Senior Mother
  • Belief in Witches
  • Befriending a Witch
  • Interlude:  A Special Child
  • Befriending a Witch (Conclusion)
  • Revenge of a Bedwetter

Chapter 11:  Child of the God

  • A Wonderful Man
  • Pennies in the Hair
  • Interlude:  Village Playtime
  • Return to the Village
  • From Frying Pan to Fire
  • Reckoning with the God

Chapter 12:  Black Power

  • Calling the Lost People
  • The Master of the Dwarves
  • Showing the Power

Part Five:  The Life in Togo


Chapter 13:  A Fast Boy

  • The Rich Biafran
  • Frankie and Antonio
  • Frankie's Game

Chapter 14:  A Nice Prison in Togo    <PDF>

  • Django and the Fucking Germans
  • Interlude:  The Maidservant's Tale
  • Louky's Problem
  • Prisoners for the Lions
  • If All the Prisons Were like This
  • Fish from the Sea in Vaginas
  • Coda

Chapter 15:  I Remember Mama

  • Drunkards
  • The Trouble with Three Friends
  • Quarreling in Secret
  • Killer Girls from Ghana

Epilogue

Glossary

Exchange Is Not Robbery:
More Stories of an African Bar Girl


Prologue


Part One:  The Life in Ouaga


Chapter 1:  A Stranger at Home

  • Love That Makes One Sick
  • The Story of Woman
  • Getting an Identity Card
  • Virginity as a Fatal Disease

Chapter 2:  Working Girls

  • Working at La Tringle
  • Mama Gets a Boyfriend
  • The Village Nightclub
  • Mama Amma and Her Two Boyfriends
  • Limata and Her Old Man
  • The Short Big Man Who Liked to Dance

Part Two:  The Human Face of Neocolonialism


Chapter 3:  Fucking French People

  • The French Nightclub
  • The French Ashawos
  • The Godfather
  • Not Crazy, Just Stupid

Chapter 4:  Konkonsa Research

  • Mr. Heh–heh–heh
  • The Belgian Prisoner
  • Interrogations
  • Hope
  • Shetu and Philippe
  • The Trouble with Frogs

Part Three:  Hawa Contextualizes Her Life


Chapter 5:  Papa's Sickness

  • Transition: Money Matters
  • Country Roads at Night
  • The First Useless Child

Chapter 6: The Big Fight in the Family  <PDF>

  • The Two Wives
  • The Big Fight
  • Interlude: Big Brother
  • The Big Fight (Conclusion)

Chapter 7:  Life with Father


Chapter 8:  Village Comedies

  • The Sense of Villagers
  • Introduction to Western Civilization
  • A Strange Case at the Chief's Court
  • How Children Get Sense
  • Good and Bad Strangers
  • Special Tea
  • Pro-pro Ghana Babies
  • Papa and the Tigernut Lady
  • Special Agent

Chapter 9:  Young Love in the Village

  • The Sister Who Refused Marriage
  • Marrying Sisters
  • Escape to Bobo
  • Further Varieties of Village Seduction
  • A Village Courtship
  • Catching Chickens
  • The Sweetness of Villages

Part Four:  African Independence


Chapter 10:  Problems of Multiculturalism

  • Stuck in the Village
  • Ten and a Half Languages
  • Undercover Research
  • I Could Sell Her in Accra

Chapter 11:  Babes in the Woods

  • The Smell of a Place
  • Passage by Contract
  • Ghana Girls in Ouaga
  • Togo Girls in Ouaga
  • A Greenhorn

Chapter 12:  The Ashawo Alternative

  • Women for Themselves
  • The Patience of a Mossi Mistress
  • Who Wants to Live in an Institution?
  • The Issue of an Issue
  • Serial Monogamy
  • Private Ashawo

Chapter 13:  Sex Stories from The Life

  • Not a Captain of Sexing
  • The Dilemma of Big Pricks
  • Limata's Boyfriend
  • Ginger for Sex Workers
  • The Italian Man with a Prick Problem

Chapter 14:  The Game

  • Something like a Thief
  • The Poor Man Who Tore Limata's Dress
  • Customer Relations
  • Popularity Party
  • Revenge of the Men
  • The Price of Champagne

  • Glossary